Dublin's Dragon
by megisrad
Summary: Where they are just and loyal... Emer Leah McKinley sneaks from her Dublin orphanage - lugging a trunk bursting with Canary Creams, Headless Hats and an innumerable amount of other fantastic prototype Weasley concoctions - blissfully unaware that this is the year she will worm her way out of the woodwork, stumble into a white-blond boy, and watch her whole world disintegrate...
1. Chapter One - Dublin's Daughter

_Chapter One - Dublin's Daughter_

* * *

Dublin's streets were sparse as the clock tower standing proud in the heart of the city struck five 'o'clock in the morning. The nightclubs had all shut their doors, the last drunken stragglers had long since stumbled over doorsteps and collapsed, exhausted but elated, into beds. The foxes, rats and dogs alike, had all snuck away – vanishing clean into the night as they caught the dangerous whiff of sunrise. The dirty orange glow of a thousand street lamps still lit many roads and pathways, although there were few souls awake to see them. A car would speed past unlit shop windows and locked pub doors, the noise of it only a snore in the silence that would hold until daybreak.

Further beyond Dublin's heart the orange bulbs of light became few and far between, and further still they flickered with dying enthusiasm, until finally the alleyways and roads met at a street eclipsed in total darkness. Both street lamps assigned to Haven Quay had spluttered into an early death, and no one had thought to replace them. Far from the city centre, and a half minute walk from the least attractive bank of the River Liffey, Haven Quay was one of many streets in a desolate and abandoned corner of Dublin that most of the city's residents had long since forgotten.

Almost exactly three quarters of the way down the road, opposite an alley leading to the waterfront, stood a large, square brick house with a brick wall running along its perimeter. The house had a driveway, in which was parked a small silver car and a mini-bus. Stamped along the side of the bus were the words '_Safe Haven Orphanage'_ with an address and telephone number beneath. A single dim light shone through thin net curtains on the second floor of the orphanage, behind which a girl was pouring over a letter.

She was a pretty sort of girl, with a round face and wavy copper-coloured hair that had been stuffed back into a ponytail. Although hunched over, she was clearly short and the thinning vest top she wore clung unflatteringly to her stomach and sides. Her eyes, encircled with dark, tired shadows, were a shade of amber that shone as they skimmed once more over the letter grasped in her hand.

_Dear Miss McKinley, _it read.

_Once again I am writing to confirm the arrangements in place for your departure. _

_A portkey will leave at twenty minutes past five in the morning of Saturday the thirty-first of August. Please bring all you need with you, as no return journey has been scheduled. _

_Your lodgings at the Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley, have been organised and you will take the train from London Kings Cross Station, platform nine and three quarters at eleven 'o'clock on the first of September. Enclosed is a list of all required items for fourth year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry._

_Best wishes,_

_Professor P. Sprout_

_Head of Hufflepuff House_

The letter had arrived two days previously tied to the leg of a withered looking tawny owl. It had beaten the morning post, so Emer had been expecting the summons of the orphanage's administrator, Janice Smith, after breakfast.

"Y'teacher 'as sent me another letter." Ms Smith had said, without looking at the girl leant back in the chair opposite her, instead peering at Professor Sprout's untidy scrawl. "You'll be goin' back to y'boarding school shall ya?"

"Aye." Emer had said, struggling to keep the grin from her face, and the memory of a similar moment from her mind. Four years previously Professor McGonagall, an extraordinarily stern-faced Scottish witch and deputy head teacher at Hogwarts, had arrived on the orphanage doorstep with a fierce expression and a letter.

Emer remembered the glazed eyes of Ms Smith as the stranger was ushered into a tiny office and offered tea. Without skepticism, Ms Smith had accepted the news that the tiny and misleadingly innocent faced girl she had been burdened with had won a scholarship at a faraway boarding school. McGonagall had presented all the official documents and announced that she was to escort Emer to London, where she would buy her new school uniform and then travel by the train to Hogwarts. Ms Smith had offered more tea.

Once safely away from the eager ears of the other children, McGonagall had revealed the truth to Emer – that she truly was, as her mother had told her, a witch.

Emer hadn't truly believed it to be real until she boarded the train on the first of September, dressed in her new wizards' robes and dragging a trunk that was bigger and heavier than she was. She had sat herself down in a compartment and stared, open mouthed at the families outside the windows, all of them dressed in robes just like hers. A bushy haired girl and a boy with a toad had joined her, both of them first years, and together they had exchanged excited gabble of all they knew of Hogwarts.

Almost four years had passed since that first journey, and Emer McKinley was no longer a first year nervous for never-before-known freedom from the orphanage in which she had grown up. She had become a witch, with magic the children at Safe Haven were too dull to dream of. She had made real friends for the first time in her life, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom had only been the beginning. Soon enough she was rubbing shoulders with Seamus Finnegan, a sandy haired Irish boy, and his best friend Dean Thomas, whom she had fancied for a while in her second year. She had also met Harry Potter, whose name she had only dimly remembered from her mother's stories, and a whole clan of redheaded freckle-faced Weasleys.

Ginny Weasley had arrived in Emer's second year, and immediately recognised a kindred spirit. But now, although still good friends, Ginny spent more time with students her own age and Emer frequently forgot to reply to her letters. This was through no fault of her own; her summer had been spent writing and receiving letters and packages from Ginny's sixteen-year-old twin brothers, Fred and George.

They had met following an act of rebellion one sunny afternoon in her first year. Skipping her last period lesson, Emer had 'refurbished' an entire bathroom on the second floor. She had enchanted the pipework so that every time someone attempted to use a toilet, one of the cubicles (and all of its contents) would explode. The cursed cubicle had changed every hour and so the nervous students was never sure if their chosen toilet would regurgitate everything once they flushed the chain. It became common to dare unfortunate friends to use the cursed bathroom, while waiting gleefully for the results. Emer took quiet pride in the fact that she had never been caught – a little first year Hufflepuff girl wouldn't even have been considered to be the instigator of the destruction of a boy's lavatory.

Fred and George Weasley were the naturally suspected culprits and so had been carted off to answer questions. It further baffled the teachers when the twins could provide a solid and completely honest alibi; they had been in Charms, levitating Professor Flitwick. But Fred and George were intrigued, and had interrogated the other students. Eventually they cornered Emer and demanded the truth. She, a little in awe of them, had relented and for the next three years would occasionally provide an extra pair of hands if they required them.

However, it had become apparent within the very first week of this summer holiday that the twins needed her help in a much more important way than simply keeping an eye out for teachers. A bedraggled old owl had collapsed spread-eagled on her bed one morning, flying in through the open window a note tied to its foot. After checking the owl was still alive, Emer had read the words scribbled on the scrap of parchment.

_Paddy,_

_This has to be quick – Mum's just left and doesn't know we took Errol. We need money so we're demonstrating our immeasurable talent to the wider world and selling some of the stuff we made last year, the fake wands, sweets…etc Only thing is, Mum's getting suspicious. She found a fake wand the other day and we laughed it off, but she isn't too impressed with our O.W.L results (three passes each, don't know what she's talking about), so she's been trying to sneak into our room to find out what we may or may not be up to. We've decided that, all things considered, we need to move our merchandise to somewhere a little more parent-free, i.e. your bedroom. _

_Try sending us a reply with the bird pronto, but we'll send you the stuff regardless._

_Love and hugs,_

_Fred, George. _

She had agreed, and undertaken the difficult task of receiving and hiding the packages – none of which she was entirely sure were legal, almost three times a week for the last month. In return, the twins had kept her updated on everything she was missing in the wizarding world.

Emer had heard all about the Death Eaters' rampage at the Quiddich World Cup in finer details than even the Daily Prophet could have provided – Mr Weasley worked for the Ministry of Magic and had found himself, Harry, Hermione and the youngest Weasley brother Ron, in the thick of the action. Emer lived with Muggles, but she was well aware of what returning Death Eaters might mean.

Emer dropped the letter from Professor Sprout onto the bed and stood up. Her trunk was open on the floor beside her, crammed with books, clothes and the Weasley twins' products. She was to take everything they had sent her to school, so they could begin their 'business' without being caught by their mother. Emer had no issue with this, other than the fact that it awkward to fit anything else in her trunk. She didn't own much, but every spell book, potion ingredient and scrap of parchment she had collected over the last three years had to leave the orphanage with her. The Muggles she lived with were entirely ignorant of the magical world – and she considered it a threat to her own sanity of they ever found an item of hers that explained how to transfigure a mouse.

She checked the clock ticking gently on the floor beside the chest of drawers. It had fallen from the wall nearly a year ago, and she hadn't thought to move it. She had fifteen minutes to get to the portkey. The walk to the waterfront would normally take less than a minute, but she was cutting it fine. She had the heavy trunk to contend with.

Emer slammed the lid shut, and clicked the locks into place. She undressed quickly and pulled on the jeans, t-shirt and jumper she had left on her bed. She stuffed her pyjamas and the letter into her rucksack alongside her wand, purse and handful of Fred and George's sweets that she dared not test. A pair of high top trainers lay discarded on the floor, and she pulled them on before hoisting the bag over one shoulder and grabbing the handle on one end of her trunk. She did not tie her laces.

Emer kicked the door open and dragged the trunk along the hallway. She wasn't bothered about waking the other children; she wouldn't see them until next summer anyhow. The trunk thudded down the staircase and each hollow bump reverberated around the silent halls.

Finally she reached the front door and scrabbled in her pockets for her keys. The clock on the wall told her she had ten minutes left. She found the keys, and was pushing them into the lock when a figure drifted into the hallway. Emer ignored the girl as she struggled with the door, shoving her weight against it until the lock clicked. She stumbled as the door swung open, and nearly fell backwards onto her trunk.

"You leavin' then?" the girl said. Her eyes were smudged with make-up she hadn't removed before she slept and her hair was scraped back into a high ponytail. She wore a leopard print dressing gown, and bright pink slippers. Emer nodded and began trying to haul the trunk over the threshold and into the night. The girl watched her, an amused smirk playing on her permanently pouted lips.

With a loud thunk, Emer managed to pull the trunk through the doorway and onto the drive. She glanced up at the clock, seven minutes.

"You told Smithy?" The girl asked, stepping forward and leaning against the doorframe.

"Course I did." Emer snarled, propping the trunk up against the wall and trying to lift it into her arms. "Going to school aren't I? I do this every year, or haven't you noticed?" The pink-slippered girl shrugged, as if she neither noticed nor cared where Freak McKinley went.

"Look," Emer said, panting a little. "This is a lovely chat and all, but I have to go now, so if you don't mind."

"Want a hand?" the other girl said, surprising herself as much as anyone else. Her cheeks flushed a little, but Emer couldn't see that in the darkness. Together they lifted the trunk, one side each, and staggered out of the driveway.

Emer led the way, crossing the road and following the path opposite that took them to the waterfront. A rat scurried across the pavement into the shadows. They heaved and hauled the trunk between the houses either side, before dropping it down on the concrete parapet that looked out over River Liffey. Emer strode up the bank, searching for the portkey, and ignoring her assistant who was hovering by the metal chain separating them from the water.

"This where the taxi's picking you up?" she called dubiously, glancing up the road towards the glittering city lights of central Dublin along the river. Emer was peering behind abandoned crates and did not answer.

Everyone in the home was under the impression that every year she was picked up by a taxi early in the morning that would take her to the 'shit-hole boarding school' they all privately envied. Never before had anyone waited to watch her leave, so the trip to the deserted bank had never been questioned. Now however, Emer straightened up with a filthy pale pink sock clutched in her hand, she faced a problem.

"Aye, something like that." She said, stretching the sock and tying it in a knot around the handle of her trunk. Emer gripped onto both the sock and the trunk, making sure that neither she nor her luggage would be left behind.

"What's the time?" She asked the girl, who snapped open a plastic diamond covered mobile phone from the pocket of her dressing gown.

"Nearly twenty past."

"How near?"

"What? I dunno, um like two minutes? The hell's wrong with you?" Emer grimaced.

"Look." She said urgently, "You remember when you stole Sean's birthday money, spent it on drink, and Patrick Kelly got the blame?"

The girl scowled, "No I never. How dare…how did you…?"

"Never mind how I know, but if you tell anyone about anything you've seen tonight, I swear to God I'll grass and don't think I won't."

"That's blackmail, so it is!" the girl hissed angrily.

"Aye," Emer's eyes twinkled as her face spread into a grin, "So it is."

"But, I don't…" The girl broke off, her eyes wide in shock. The display on the screen of her phone had just changed from 05:19 to 05:20, and Freak McKinley, with her trunk and dirty old sock had vanished into thin air.

The sudden tug behind Emer's navel was no more comfortable than it had been the first time she had used a portkey. She had been sent spinning away from the girl with the ponytail, the only reality she had to cling to was the handle of the trunk and the dirty sock.

And then she landed, unceremoniously collapsing against her trunk in cobbled courtyard. There was a rickety wooden door facing her, surrounded on all sides by crates full of bottles. A metal sign hung over the door, creaking slightly as it swayed in the breeze. _The Leaky Cauldron_, it read_._

Emer checked herself over and, after concluding that she was all in one piece, she stood up, untied the pink sock from her trunk and left it on top of a crate. Then she tugged at the trunk with both hands and dragged it towards the door.

The sun hadn't reached the little London courtyard quite yet, and so the only real source of light was a lantern hanging beneath the swinging sign. Emer was shattered, and the lack of light didn't help as her limbs demanded sleep.

She opened the back door of the little pub, which had been left unlocked, and stepped inside, heaving her trunk with her. The Leaky Cauldron was empty, every spindled chair balanced on a table top and only one candle burned in a bracket on the wall. Rows of bottles behind the bar were stacked neatly for the following day's customers and the front door was bolted with a large padlock. A lingering smell of musky ale held the room in a peaceful sleep. Emer breathed it in with mounting delight – this pub, and the hidden secrets behind the back wall of the courtyard, were the first steps towards home.

A door, almost hidden by the racks of bottles, creaked open and an old man shuffled in. His crooked face broke into a toothless grin as he recognised her and whispered, "Miss McKinley!" He was bald, hunched over and wearing long, black nightclothes. His slippered feet made a quiet scuffle across the stone floor as he side stepped the counter and moved towards Emer. She reached out and shook his hand vigorously, smiling at the glint in the old man's dark, sharp eyes.

"How are you Tom?"

"Fine, I'm fine." He said, rummaging in his dressing gown. "Got your room-key in here somewhere…"

"How much do I owe you?" Emer asked, swinging her own backpack from her shoulder and reaching for her purse, "I've only got Muggle money, I was going to exchange it in the morning but…"

"No need, no need. Aha!" He batted her question away and pulled out a single iron key tied to a piece of string. "School paid your lodgings. Room 6 ma'am, if you would follow me."

With a silent flick of his wand, the heavy trunk rose gracefully into the air and glided behind them as they crossed the floor and climbed the twisted staircase that led to the guest rooms. Tom ducked under an archway and, pressing a finger to his lips, crept down the hallway. A loud rumbling snore droned through the gap beneath one of the doors branching from the corridor, and Emer was forced to bite back a laugh. She imagined a sleeping dragon curled beneath the bed sheets, one wing hanging over the side of the bed and hot breath slowly singeing the curtains.

"Here y'are." Tom said, inserting the key into a door on the left hand side. It clicked and swung forward, revealing a tiny room taken up almost entirely by a four-poster bed with drapes patterned with green and gold swirls. A tall mirror leant against the wall in one corner and window looking out onto the now deserted Charing Cross Road faced them as they stood in the doorway.

The trunk followed Emer into the room, landing neatly on top of a low wooden table beside a burning candle. Emer watched it jealously, it would be nearly another three years before she would be allowed to perform magic outside of Hogwarts.

"Got everythin' you need?" Tom asked, passing her the key. She nodded, "Well, you know where the loos are an' I'll open up the bar at half seven." She thanked him and he backed out of the room, shutting the door and leaving her alone once more.

As weary shop keepers rolled up their clattering shutters and London's bells chimed six 'o'clock in the morning, Emer McKinley sighed in her sleep beneath swirls of emerald and gold, her jeans, t-shirt and jumper all heaped in a pile on the floor and a scarlet steam engine puffing its way through her dreams.


	2. Chapter Two - Diagon Alley

It was nearly mid-day when Emer finally pushed back the bed covers and forced herself to her feet. She had slept badly, despite her tiredness, and had woken on the hour, every hour. She felt groggy as she got ready; pulling on the clothes she had worn the night before. Ferociously rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she locked her bedroom door and trudged down into the main belly of the pub.

It was much livelier than it had been last night, the tables were full of little huddles of witches and wizards drinking butter beer and slurping soup, many discussing today's Daily Prophet which Tom was also flicking through at the bar.

"M-m-morning." Emer yawned, nodding to him as she came close.

"Sleep awright?" He asked, folding up the newspaper, "Can I getcha anythin'?"

"Don't worry," Emer said rubbing her eyes, "I've got to get going. There's a load I need from town, I'll grab something later."

"If you're sure," he said, smiling at her before taking an order from a stout man with a goatee.

Emer continued her way through the pub, weaving between tables and customers towards the back door –which had been propped open. People were passing through the door steadily, in and out of the little courtyard as if it were a train station. A tall wizard in a flat hat and tassels drooping from the sleeves of his robes was standing beside the back wall of the courtyard, leaning against a brick archway.

It was the entrance to Diagon Alley; the rabbit run of cobbled streets that made up the wizarding hub of London – completely hidden from the Muggle world. Normally Emer would have used her wand to open the hidden archway, but today it seemed Tom had employed the wizard in the hat to monitor the busy flow of customers that came and went as they pleased. The wizard, who upon closer inspection must only have been seventeen or eighteen at the most, winked as she passed him.

The streets were alive and busy with people moving from shop to shop, many pausing to chat to friends and disrupting the beeline movements of more impatient shoppers. Emer only visited Diagon Alley once a year, to buy her new school things, and still marvelled at it all. The brightly coloured shop fronts with stacks of squawking crates and barrels were a world away from Haven Quay and its distinct lack of street lights. A pair of brothers ran passed her, throwing dung-bombs at unsuspecting shoppers, giggling wickedly as their red-faced mother chased behind them.

Gringotts Bank was a huge marble white building that stood grand and tall at the very end of Diagon Alley. Emer didn't have a vault, or enough wizard gold to bother putting in one, but she had worked in a Muggle shop in Dublin all summer, and had been saving her earnings for this very trip. The goblins who ran the bank would reluctantly exchange her hard earned pounds and pennies for the galleons, sickles and knuts she needed in the wizarding world.

She took the steps up the great bronze doors two by two, flashing a grin at the uniformed goblins flanking them. They scowled back at her, a contemptuous look in their beady black eyes. She pushed open the doors, and passed into the vast marble hall that was Gringotts.

Long counters stretched along the length of it, with ironically small goblins sitting three feet above their customers on spindled gold high-chairs. Doors lined every wall, leading off into the dark tunnels that would lead those with vaults to their treasure. Emer marched briskly up the centre of the hall, she had never liked the atmosphere in the bank and imagined that every move she made was scrutinised and analysed by hundreds of pairs of invisible eyes. She didn't like to think that her imaginings were probably true.

She spotted a free goblin to her right, and picked her way across the diamond patterned marble floor towards him. However just as she reached the goblin, she was cut off by a tall, pale-faced man with long white-blonde hair that hung low down his back. He carried an ebony black cane with a serpentine silver pummel, and wore a black cloak that seemed to hold an impenetrable ego within its folds.

"So…sorry." The man drawled, with barely half a glance at Emer after sliding in front of her But he made no attempt to step back, and began conversing with the goblin as if she hadn't been worth holding in his mind for more than the second it took to dismiss her. She scowled and made to push past the drawling man, but then a boy materialised at his father's side and dislike pinned her to the spot.

With hair and face as pale as his father's, and scathing grey eyes that suggested permanent and universal loathing, Draco Malfoy drew himself up beside Lucius, puffing out his skinny chest. Hatred for the father burned suddenly and unexpectedly inside of her, and words her own dead mother had spoken to her flashed red in her mind for the first time in years.

"Father," Draco began. Emer had taken only a step away from them when he spotted her, "Oh…it's _you._" She didn't so much as look back, instead selecting a goblin at random from the opposite side of the hall and storming towards him.

"I want to exchange some Muggle money." She snapped, still seething.

"Oh you do, do you?" The goblin sneered down at her from his perch, "How much do you wish to exchange?"

Ten minutes later she was back out in the glorious sunshine, the fury she had felt from her encounter with Mr Malfoy ebbing gently away. The money she had managed to cobble together over the summer was gone and in its place thirty gold galleons as well as fourteen sickles and knuts a piece. Her stomach growled in protest and, with her purse in hand, she set off towards Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

After finding a table and tucking into a Fizzing Whizzbee Sundae, Emer pulled out her school list and examined it closely. All the usual books and potions equipment were there, along with the new quill she knew she needed, but at the very bottom of the list was an addition she had not been expecting: _Those in fourth year or above will require dress robes._

Dress robes? It seemed an odd request; there were never normally parties or important dinners at Hogwarts that required formal clothes. She glanced across the street towards Madam Malkin's, the dressmakers, and wondered how much of her money she would have to spend on a dress. She didn't own many clothes, and certainly none that would fit the criteria of 'Dress Robes' – she somehow doubted Professor McGonagall would accept leggings and an oversized t-shirt as formal.

She paid her bill at the ice-cream parlour and drifted towards the dressmakers, a little apprehensive, but nonetheless determined. Rich fabrics were draped around tailored mannequins standing confidently in the window, through which Emer could see the interior of the shop. A squat woman sat behind the counter, ferociously sewing a dragon's skin suit, with her glasses balancing on the end of a stubby little rose. The tinkle of a shop bell sounded somewhere out of sight as Emer pushed open the door and the woman looked up at her, smiling.

"Hogwarts?" She said in a sing-song voice.

Emer nodded, "I need…dress robes."

Hours later, Emer sat with her back against the headboard of her bed in the Leaky Cauldron's dingy little room. Paper parcels tied neatly with string were strewn across the floor and '_The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Four' _had been abandoned on the little spindled table. It was the only one of her school books Emer had attempted to read, and had become disinterested before she'd even started chapter one.

Her mind kept straying to the largest package, the only one to have earned a place in her trunk, which contained twenty galleons worth of shimmering golden fabric. Beautiful though it was, she couldn't picture a situation where she would actually wear it and she wondered again why it was suddenly on their school list. Were they throwing a party for the older students? It seemed unlikely, she couldn't exactly imagine her teachers throwing caution to the wind and letting their hair down.

Lucius Malfoy's scathing tone drifted back to her and she scowled into the darkened, empty room. Emer had never before been able to put the name to the face, but now having done she just felt immeasurable anger towards the man. Every part of him, from his glossy hair to his immaculate leather shoes made her skin curl. Here was a man with nothing to lose, but had taken everything from the scum he considered beneath him. She was absent-mindedly twisting a tiny shamrock that hung from a long gold chain around her neck.

She kicked off her shoes and socks and slid under the sheets fully clothed. Anticipation and excitement was mounting inside her as she pictured the puffing steam engine she would board the following morning. Her wand was still in the rucksack abandoned near her trunk. She hadn't used it in nearly two months and was itching to hex the next Slytherin she met, purely because she could.

Emer didn't remember falling asleep; her mind's aimless ramblings could easily have pulled her under without her realising, but the next thing she knew there was a brisk hammering coming from the door.

"Miss McKinley!" It was Tom, calling from the corridor outside.

"Wassthematter?" Her words were groggy and slurred with sleep.

"It's gone ten, I was just thinkin', well…don't you need to leave soon?"

"Shit!" Emer yelped sitting bolt upright. The train left in an hour, whether she was on board or not, "Thanks Tom!" She called, already rolling out of bed and pulling clean clothes from her trunk. The dull thud thud thud of his retreat back down the passage was only just audible above the choosy swearwords streaming from Emer's mouth as she hunted for underwear.

Fifteen minutes later she stood in front of the mirror, towel drying her hair and cursing the fact she couldn't yet use magic to speed up the process. She was dressed in Muggle clothes, she would change on the train, and her jeans were sticking uncomfortably to her still wet legs.

Abandoning hope, she threw the towel in the open trunk where it landed haphazard atop the paper parcels she had squashed in minutes before. It was as Emer clicked the locks of the trunk shut that she realised she didn't know how she was going to get to Kings Cross in time. She had taken a taxi to the station last year, but a single glance out of the window onto Charing Cross below told her that the traffic in London that morning meant she would never make it.

She swore rapidly as she hauled the trunk onto the floor by hand, where it landed with a ringing thud. She checked she'd left nothing behind and then lugged the trunk down the corridor to the staircase, where she nearly crashed into Tom standing on the top step.

"Oh, sorry!" She said, promptly dropping the trunk on her own foot and swearing once more. Tom let out a wheezy laugh, grasping the stair rail for support.

"There's a portkey…tha' tea towel on t'side…tha'll get you there on time." He coughed a little after each phrase, composing himself. Emer grinned in appreciation and together they supported the trunk down the stairs, then balancing it precariously on the bar. The aged barman tied the dirty tea towel around the handle and Emer gripped on as she had done before.

"Thanks Tom," She said, turning to face him, "Thanks for everything; you've been a right gem so you have."

"Tha's alrigh'" he said smiling broadly, "You 'ave a good year, an' don't get into no mischief eh?" She laughed, opened her mouth the reply, but then felt the familiar tug in her stomach and the scene bent and deformed as she and her trunk were taken across the city to Kings Cross Station.


	3. Chapter Three - Kings Cross Station

The portkey deposited Emer and the trunk behind a murky green catering van that smelled distinctly of burnt hot-dogs. Ignoring the immediate growl from her stomach, Emer peered around the van, her eyes scanning the crowds. It was cold that morning and a persistent drizzle pattered down on the backs of commuters as they scurried along, faces turned towards the ground and free newspapers held above their heads.

However several of the people hurrying towards the station doors were so plainly out of place it was a wonder the Muggles didn't ask questions. She spotted the dark heads of the Patil twins, Parvati and Padma were in her year at Hogwarts, walking with their mother who wore long robes of bright fuchsia pink decorated with golden stars and moons. Laughing a little to herself, Emer noticed an abandoned luggage trolley by the edge of the trailer she was hidden behind.

Darting out with her arms covering her head, she grabbed it and rolled it back to her trunk. It took a lot of effort to haul the heavy trunk onto the trolley, but once she had done so the task of boarding the train became a lot easier. Her ticket was in her rucksack with the letter Professor Sprout had sent, which was slung over her back. She pushed the trolley out into the scampering crowd, chuckling at the bewildered looks and cries of the beefy man inside the hotdog trailer.

Through the sliding doors Emer went, and immediately spotted another wizarding family, again recognisable by their robes, this time a rich forest green. The teenage girl slouching behind her mother also had dark hair, although hers was cut much shorter and tied in a high ponytail. She walked with a swagger, her trunk being pushed on a trolley by her father.

Pansy Parkinson was a Slytherin, and a repulsive one at that. Emer and she had found themselves at locker heads the year before after an unfortunate incident involving a jelly leg jinx that Pansy had never been able to prove Emer had anything to do with.

Emer held back a little as Pansy and her parents marched straight through the apparently solid barrier between platforms nine and ten. Those wizards who were wary, or respectful, of the Muggles ignorance to magic usually attempted this very public crossing in a more discreet way. However it was the nature and belief of many pure blood families, like the Parkinsons, that naturally inferior Muggles ought to wallow in misery and longing for the world in which they had no rightful place.

She pushed her trolley onwards towards the barrier. Not until she was so close she could almost feel the enchantment beside her did she stop and bend down as if to tie her shoelace, one foot hooked around the wheel of the trolley. As she stood back up, she neatly slipped through the wall and pulled the trolley behind her with her foot.

At once bleak Kings Cross Station with its express trains and coffee bars vanished, replaced by a platform surveyed by a single hanging sign that read Platform 9 . Hundreds of people were bustling in a crowd bigger than any she had seen in Diagon Alley. Children were calling for their friends and mothers were calling for their children, people were pushing trolleys hither and thither and hauling great trunks onto the brilliant scarlet locomotive that waited patiently on the tracks. Steam billowed from it, giving the impression that the people gathered on the platform were standing in a dense fog, their feet entirely hidden. Owls flew freely overhead, and a giant clock told Emer that she had fifteen minutes to board the train. She relaxed, and wheeled her trolley up the platform and away from the enchanted barrier, through which a harassed looking mother had just tumbled after her sons.

Emer recognised most of the students gathered in huddles with their families and friends as she weaved her way through them, waving to Hannah Abbot and Ernie McMillan, fellow Hufflepuffs, as well as Lee Jordan, a sixth year boy with dreadlocks and a gleam in his eye.

The steam thinned a little and a family to her right came into view, distinguishable by their bright ginger hair. Emer's face broke into a grin. Ginny spotted Emer first, hurrying to meet her and pulling her into a friendly hug.

"How are you?" she exclaimed as Emer rolled her trolley towards the rest of the Weasleys.

"Aye, I'm grand." Emer laughed "Sorry I didn't reply to your last letter, surprised you're still talking to me,"

"I considered not," Ginny said reproachfully, but she smiled all the same. They re-joined the huddle of red-headed Weasleys and Emer glanced around.

"Morning Ron," She said, nodding to the youngest Weasley son across the circle where he stood between a boy with glasses and a girl with very bushy brown hair, "Harry, Hermione."

They smiled. A tall, thin, and very good-looking, young man lounged at the edge of the party. His long hair was red as any of his siblings, and tied back in a ponytail. His clothes were black and his boots and jacket looked as though they were made of dragon hide. Emer guessed that this was Bill, the eldest of the Weasley children. Beside him was his mother, a plump woman with a round, jolly face and was nearly half as short as any of her sons.

There was a pointed cough from Emer's right. Lanky, ginger and with a mischievous glint in their dark brown eyes, Fred and George were identical to the last freckle.

"Paddy!" Fred said hugging her, as the rest of the family broke off into their own conversations. George did the same, whispering in her ear "Have you got the stuff?"

"What stuff?" A suspicious voice said, and as George pulled away Emer saw his mother glaring reproachfully at him.

"Mum," Fred interjected quickly, "Allow me to introduce our dear friend Emer McKinley…she's a Hufflepuff in Ron's year." He added the last few words intentionally, and they almost worked.

Mrs Weasley's scowl cleared a little, but there was still an accusatory note in her tone as she said, "Well then, good morning dear, it's so…lovely to meet you at last – I've heard, well…" She trailed off.

Sorted into Hufflepuff house, whose students were known for their hard work and loyalty, Emer was expected to toe the line. However _her_ hard work and loyalty tended to aid fellow troublemakers, rather than her school grades. Never getting caught for her crimes, many of the more ignorant teachers and pupils thought Emer to be a prime example of a decent Hufflepuff student. Unfortunately, any titbits of information Mrs Weasley may have gathered would have been from the mouths of her children and were therefore likely to paint a worryingly accurate picture.

"Aye it's lovely to meet you too Mrs Weasley!" Emer beamed, her eyes sparkling, "And don't worry about what George says. It's just sweets see, Irish sweets. I don't get much money at the orphanage, but these two really like 'em and I can get them back home." The brief offhand mention of 'the orphanage' had had the desired effect. Mothers, especially those whose capacity for care extended beyond their own kin, would always take to the 'orphan' ploy.

"That's s-so sweet dear. Fred! George! Help Emer carry her trunk onto the train, goodness only knows how you managed to get it from Ireland all by yourself…I mean," she went a little pink.

"It's alright," Emer smiled lazily as the twins groaned under the weight of her trunk, "Don't worry about me, thank you Mrs Weasley." She glanced at Ginny before turning to follow the twins and winked. Ginny rolled her eyes and struck up a conversation with Bill. He was wearing a dragon tooth earring that Emer had to drag her eyes away from.

"You," said Fred, panting a little as he and George heaved the trunk through the crowds of students, "Are a right crafty git."

"If you can do that in a few minutes," George elbowed a second year out of his way, "She'll have adopted you by Christmas."

"Oh come on," She ducked around them and opened a door onto the train, hopping up and helping them steady the trunk. "It's a gift. Three solid years of general disruption without a single detention didn't happen without serious skill, so it didn't."

"Goody two shoes." Fred muttered. Emer waggled a finger at him.

"Now now Freddie, I prefer 'Sycophantic Genius'"

With a laugh and a great heave the twins pushed the trunk up and onto the train.

George massaged his hands. "What've you got in there? A couple of leprechauns?" He asked – one twin sticking out a hand and pulling the other up beside him.

"No, actually." Emer said in a lowered tone as a Ravenclaw seventh year pushed past them. "I've got all the crap you've been sending me this summer."

"So you _have _got it!" Fred cried, "Excellent!"

"Aye I've got it, now help me get it up here."

Together they lifted the trunk up onto the luggage rack and sat themselves down in the adjoining compartment. George opened the window and leaned out to talk to his family who were still gathered around on the platform. Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny soon bundled in with them, exchanging goodbyes with those still on the platform.

"You know, I kind of wish I was going back to Hogwarts this year." Bill with the dragon earring said, gazing wistfully at the train.

"Why?" Fred cried, but his brother ignored him and carried on.

"Yeah, you're going to have an interesting few months."

"What do you mean?" George asked, irritated.

"I might even come and watch, Charlie will probably want to see a bit of it too,"

"A bit of what?" Ron moaned.

"Stop winding them up you." Mrs Weasley batted her eldest son with her handbag and they backed away, chortling. "Now, have a good year all of you and – behave yourselves." She stared pointedly at the twins who raised their eyes to the heavens in one movement. Ron was leaning so far out of the window now that Harry had one hand on the back of his shirt to stop him falling out of the train.

"Tell me what's happening at Hogwarts!" He demanded indignantly of his mother. But at that moment, a whistle blew and the train started to billow out even more steam. As it began to move forward, Mrs Weasley smiled and waved at her sons' scowling faces. Within seconds she and Bill had vanished, aparated in the dense fog.

Harry, Hermione, Ron and Ginny all said goodbye before trooping off to find friends in other compartments, whilst Emer and the twins made themselves at home. She sat opposite them and, after discussing all the twins had witnessed at the Quiddich World Cup, Fred and George pulled her trunk down from the luggage rack and settled it on the floor between them.

"So it was this Crouch fella's elf?" Emer asked for the umpteenth time, passing her rucksack to George who fumbled around inside it for the key. "An' he's a Ministry bloke?"

"Barty Crouch has almost as many people kissing his feet as Fudge." Fred said.

"And he's Percy's boss?"

"Boss, saint, I would've said fiancé until we met him."

"Turns out, Percy isn't quite as memorable as he might have hoped." George said smugly.

Fred and George rifled through Emer's trunk until the floor was littered with all the bags, boxes and tins they had sent her over the summer. There were nearly fifty packages in every shape and size. Bright red punching telescopes, trick wands in every variety and a couple of vivid purple top hats that had shot out of the trunk and were now zooming above their heads. One of the bags split open and a hundred miniscule snakes exploded from it, bouncing on their tail like a coiled spring. Sweets and toffees in every colour imaginable were bagged up, each with labels such as: DO NOT EAT – PROTOTYPE, CAUSES SEVERE DOG BREATH printed in the twins' untidy handwriting on the side.

"Whoa." It was Lee Jordan, standing in the compartment door with an impressed smirk on his face. Emer shuffled up to let him sit down as the twins exclaimed over their hoard in delight.

"We'll make a fortune out of this lot…" Fred said, poking Emer with a fake wand that promptly, with a puff of acid green smoke, turned into a cauliflower.

"The order forms are in the back pocket of my bag," Emer grinned at George, who ripped the backpack open and pulled out a wad of parchment titled: _Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes_ in curling letters.

"Emer." He said, very seriously "We are forever in your debt."

She couldn't reply, having just bitten into a biscuit from a bag on top of the pile, and turned into a canary.


	4. Chapter Four - Frying Pan Faces

"It is a great honour to announce that this year, for the first time in over a century, Hogwarts School will be playing host to the Triwizard Tournament!"

The empty plates and goblets had been cleared from the four house tables, where every astonished face was turned towards Dumbledore. Ernie McMillan's jaw dropped.

"YOU'RE JOKING!" Fred Weasley cried from the Gryffindor table and everybody laughed, except George who was shaking his head, apparently lost for words.

"Aha," Dumbledore too gave a little chuckle, "I am not joking, Mr Weasley. I am certain-" He raised his voice, quenching the buzz that had broken out on all sides, "That some of our number require a little further explanation, and I ask if the rest would allow their attentions to wander quietly."

Emer listened, her brain churning the information into excitement, as Dumbledore's words wove a Tournament thick with danger, triumph and riches promised to the winner. She caught George's eye across the room. He winked. She grinned back, imagining herself as school champion, the one student elected above all others to compete in dangerous tasks and win glory for Hogwarts.

"However, over the years the death toll has grown too high to be ignored, and certain safety precautions must be in place to ensure that none of the competing champions are in any serious danger. This includes," Dumbledore looked sternly around at the sea of anticipation, "A strict rule that only students who are of age by the thirty-first of October, that is to say seventeen, shall be allowed to enter the Tournament."

There was uproar at this. Fred and George, who would turn seventeen in April, rose as one, and yelling obscenities at Dumbledore that, thankfully, could not fully be heard over the tumult of noise.

"I will personally ensure," Dumbledore called firmly and the noise died down at once, Ginny and Lee Jordan pulled at the twins, but they would not sit. "That our impartial judge will not allow any under-age student, and therefore I advise you not to attempt it." His sparkling blue eyes held on the mutinous looks of Fred and George. "Now, off to bed all of you. Pip-pip."

The scrapings of chairs and escalating talk filled the Great Hall.

"Exciting isn't it?" Justin Finch-Fletchly said, turning to Emer. "I wish we were allowed to enter though," he added glumly.

"Aye," Emer nodded.

"I think Professor Dumbledore is quite right to put restrictions in place," Ernie said pompously, leaning in. "Quite frankly, no underage student will have learnt enough to participate safely." Emer rolled her eyes. She liked Ernie, but his love of rule-following, and her disregard for it, meant they did not always see eye to eye.

The three of them moved down the table together, speculating over the dangerous tasks the champions might have to compete in and thinking wistfully of the one thousand galleons in prize money that would never be theirs.

"You know," Justin said as they joined the back of the crowd, "I would have entered,"

"You?" someone scoffed. Draco Malfoy had snuck up behind them, flanked by his thickset bodyguards Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. "I seriously doubt a _Hufflepuff _will be school champion, I mean, what are you really good at Fletchly? Manners can't really compete with _dark magic_ can they?" Justin turned a little pink, and Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly.

"What would _you _know about it?" Ernie snapped. Malfoy raised a scathing eyebrow.

"Really McMillan if that's the best you can-"

"Aye, but you'd be a great champion Malfoy." Emer smiled, "Daddy could pay the nasty monsters not to get mud on your precious, golden locks." Ernie and Justin both snorted loudly. Crabbe and Goyle's beefy faces curled into ugly snarls.

"Oh very _clever_, dirty mudblood." Malfoy spat, his cheeks darkening.

"I say!" Ernie cried, the smile slipping from his face.

Emer had grown up being butchered by much worse names than _'mudblood'_, but of course to wizarding folk it was the worst thing Mafloy could have come up with. All she did as Ernie spluttered with indignation was flick a finger and was carefully tread on Crabbe's foot as the crowd moved forwards and she left them.

The air was suddenly cooler as students disbanded, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws hurrying up the marble staircase, the Slytherins down to the dungeons and the Hufflepuffs towards the kitchens.

"Oi! Watch where you're going!" A skinny blonde boy with an upturned nose said, shoving Emer hard out of his way. She scowled, her fingers reaching for her wand.

"Hey!" Someone from behind darted forward and grabbed the boy's robes, "If I see you shoving people again Smith I swear you're off the team!" It was Cedric Diggory.

"Don't worry about it," Emer muttered going red, "It doesn't matter."

"It does!" Cedric pointed a finger in Smith's face, a few of Cedric's sixth year friends had joined them and were causing a pile-up. "I'm warning you, one more stunt like that and I'll have you off the Quiddich team for good. There are plenty of other, better, chasers in this house." Smith's face contorted with anger, but Cedric turned away before he had a chance to retort.

"Are you alright?" Cedric said to Emer, who was concentrating all her efforts on calming the rising flush in her face.

"Aye, I'm, I'm fine. Th-thank you…" She stuttered. Her voice came out unusually high pitched and it seemed her grasp of language had abandoned her.

"It's alright," Cedric said cheerily, his friends pulling him along with them, "Smith can be a right arse."

"A-aye." Emer laughed, but he was gone before she got the word out.

From time to time she fantasised about the tall, well-built boy, with dark ruffled hair and bright grey eyes that smiled even when his mouth did not. She had imagined walking through the school, arm in arm with Cedric, the pride of Hufflepuff house, of hiding in empty classrooms with him, of kissing him.

The Hufflepuff basement was found along a secret passage hidden behind a false barrel of butterbeer. People weren't staying in the common room tonight, all preferring to take refuge in their beds beneath thick sheets warmed with bedpans and plump with cushions. There were benefits to being in the homeliest of the Hogwarts' Houses.

Emer shared her dormitory with the four other Hufflepuff girls in her year, most of whom she got on with, but found all irritating.

"Evening Emer!" Megan Jones, a dumpy Welsh girl, called from her bed, her round face alight and excited, dirty blonde pigtails sticking out at right angles either side of her head. "Good hols'?" Megan reminded Emer of an upper class chipmunk.

Emer made a non-committal grunt as she bent down and began unlocking her school trunk. She was still glowing and careful to hide her face.

"Ignore her Megan," Susan Bones said, "She's just being a moody old wart." Out of all the girls in her dormitory, Emer like Susan the least. She followed her best friend Hannah Abbot around like a whimpering puppy, and was quick to criticise anyone failing to meet her own standard of perfection. Emer was yet to reach this ideal.

"Aye," Emer said, extracting her pyjamas before giving Susan a mock solute, "I'm a moody old wart so I am. Right y'are Susie." Megan and Leanne, the last of Emer's roommates, laughed nervously as Susan turned an interesting shade of burgundy. Emer smiled sweetly at her.

"Don't call me Sus…"

"Alright!" Hannah said, stepping between them, and Susan stopped at once, her eyes brimming with adoration. Emer turned away disgusted, silently praying that look would never appear on her own face.

"I don't want you two fighting before the term's even started." Hannah said imperiously, addressing the hangings Emer had pulled shut. "We're going to have to set an example to the foreign students this term."

"Didn't know they were going to be following me to bed." Emer muttered, "Although, I wouldn't mind some lost Beauxbatons boy finding his way here in the middle of the night."

Leanne shrieked with laughter and there was a little thud as Megan tumbled from her own four-poster. Emer couldn't stop the grin spreading across her lips.

"Bed!" Hannah said, although Emer knew she was struggling to hold back a laugh.

Chuckling, she lay back on her pillows and stared at the canopy above. She imagined again, winning the Triwizard Tournament, a thousand galleons prize money and Cedric Diggory running up to congratulate her. It was after their third consecutive kiss, when she fell into a dream of Draco Malfoy being chased by a dragon, his hands over his hair as it burned merrily.

Emer awoke late the next morning, and so stumbled sleepily down the staircase into the common room alone. Her stomach rumbled pointedly. Only a couple of fifth years sat by the fire, as most of the Hufflepuffs were already down in the Great Hall eating breakfast and collecting their new timetables.

The Great Hall was thick with chatter and the clatter of forks against plates, while the post owls fluttered in through the rafters, circling the tables and dropping packages. No one glanced twice at Emer as she followed a group of Hufflepuff boys to their table, until a shout was heard above the chatter-

"Oi! Paddy!"

Fred was on his feet, beckoning her towards himself and George. Feeling disapproving eyes on her back, she slotted herself beside Fred at the Gryffindor table instead. Susan Bones gave a distinct disapproving cough.

George rolled his eyes and Fred said loudly, "You should feel privileged Emer; we don't affiliate with _duffers_."

"Subtle…" Emer muttered, chuckling as she dropped her bag on the floor between her legs and took a glass of orange juice from George.

"We try," He said, winking.

They were clearly halfway through scrutinising their new timetables, one of which Fred had propped against the water jug. Emer picked it up and glanced over it.

"Nice…" she said, "You've got that Moody fella later. Creepy one he is…"

The twins shared a look.

"What? Do you know him?"

"Dad knows him. He reckons Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had, brilliant…in his day," Fred said carefully, glancing up at the top table.

"Auror?"

"Dark wizard catcher."

"But now he's meant to be a right nutcase." George shrugged. "The Ministry got rid of him when he started arresting people for looking at him twice."

Emer looked up at the top table too, Moody wasn't touching the food set out before him, but surveying the students, his mean mismatched eyes boring into the crowd.

"But anyway, we've got a scheme."

Emer took a sip from her glass and placed it back down before replying. "Go on." Fred turned his back slightly, so as to block their conversation from Seamus and Dean who sat the other side of him.

"It's this Triwizard thing," he said wielding a slice of toast in the air like a baton.

"And the age restriction." George muttered. Emer nodded, her eyes flitting from one twin to the next.

"We feel, with the greatest respect, that our dear Headmaster has greatly underestimated the ability of under-age wizards, and couldn't bare to think of our community going unrepresented in this prestigious event."

"Aye," Emer scoffed, "An' you thought a thousand galleons sounded pretty nice."

"Well, that too." Fred admitted.

"So…" George said, leaning across the table towards them. "We're going to trick this 'impartial judge' into letting us enter."

"Right, great plan." Emer rolled her eyes, "Let me know when you've actually worked out _how_."

"An aging potion." She stared at them, her mouth slightly open in disbelief.

"You're kidding right?" They shook their heads, "Dumbledore'll see through that a mile off! Everybody knows that you aren't seventeen!"

"Well…" Fred said, raising an eyebrow.

"If you don't want to join us…" George smiled slyly. She narrowed her eyes. If she was honest with herself, Emer knew she had to take every opportunity to make this friendship work – and they knew it too.

"Alright," she said, and they grinned wickedly. "But if I end up all warty because you've got half a brain cell between you…"

"How very dare you!" Fred gasped with a glint in his eye. They discussed the tournament in detail for the rest of breakfast, oblivious to the students steadily leaving the Great Hall for their first lessons. By the time the bell rang, the hall was empty apart from themselves and a handful of Slytherins.

"McKinley!" a harassed voice called. Emer stood up as the twins stuffed their timetables into their bags and slung them over shoulders. Squat, with wispy grey hair and cheeks tinged with a purple red, Professor Sprout was hurrying towards them.

"You didn't collect your timetable! I've been looking for you all morning, only to find you lounging around with…" she gestured at Fred and George, both of whose eyebrows shot skyward, "Do you _care _about your education?"

Emer bad the twins goodbye and trudged down the stone steps towards the greenhouses. She was very late, and the rest of her class were already pulling on protective coats and dragonhide gloves. However, to her relief, Professor Sprout hadn't arrived yet, and so she took her place on the back table without further comment.

Emer spent the next hour bursting bubotubers, repulsive black slug-like plants that yielded thick yellowish green pus. The highlight of the lesson was a spectacular explosion of pus from Seamus' bubotuber, which splattered the putrid smelling gunk all over him. However the humour wore off when he angled his next squeeze towards her place on the bench. The pus landed with a squelch and she had to duck to avoid it hitting her in the face. Professor Sprout quickly decided to end the activity for fear of a looming all-out pus-war between them.

The rest of Emer's first week proved not to be quite as enjoyable. The teachers clearly felt that they needed to cram as much into the heads of the students as they could before the Triwizard Tournament began. She, like the rest of the fourth years, was piled with essay after essay demanding explanations of transfigurments and charms, recipes for potions and recounts of apparently legendary Goblin Wars. Emer had to take Professor Bins' word for this, as she had never heard of the gory, bloody conflict until she walked into A History of Magic on Friday morning.

She sat through an hour of the ghost-professor's drones, without making a single note on her parchment. Instead, Emer entertained herself by zooming a dead spider across the classroom, flitting it from desk to desk with the intent of making as many of her classmates shriek as she could. The game ended with Draco Malfoy plucking the spider from Pansy Parkinson's hair and crushing it between his fingers.

The Hufflepuffs and Slytherins also shared their Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons that morning, and so all trudged together towards Mad Eye Moody's classroom. Emer followed Leanne and Megan, who were gossiping frantically – continuing a conversation they had started an hour previously.

"So what do you think? About Cedric entering the Tournament?" Megan asked Leanne excitedly.

"Well…" Leanne began, but a scathing voice cut her off from behind them.

"Cedric? You mean Diggory's putting his name forward? Oh please," He rolled his eyes and the other Slytherins started to laugh. "Not that arrogant pretty boy, he hasn't got the nerve to crush a bug. He would be dead in minutes!"

This, Emer thought, was a bit rich coming from Malfoy who was the pinnacle of 'an arrogant pretty boy'. The girls gasped, disgusted, and recoiled as if the insult had been aimed at them personally. Ernie McMillan stepped forward, a threatening finger raised.

"That was rude and inconsiderate." He began, and Emer lost hope. Malfoy knew it would provide a little light entertainment for his cronies as the Hufflepuffs spluttered for a worthwhile retort that would never come.

Pansy Parkinson was sniggering with her gang of girl friends at Malfoy's elbow. "It's not even like Diggory's handsome!" She snorted, "His face is all pinched and skinny! He looks like a house elf!" The other girls cackled with derisive laughter.

"You'd make a cute couple then Pansy," Emer said calmly from behind Ernie. "Pinched is one thing, but at least his face hasn't been smashed in with a frying pan, that really would be unfortunate. Tell me, does it make life difficult?" She asked angelically, batting her eyelids. This time it was the Hufflepuffs' turn to laugh. Pansy went bright red and her jaw hung open in shock.

"YOU CAN'T SAY THAT TO ME!" She shrieked, her hands balling into fists.

"Aye, well, you're probably right." Emer nodded slowly, her eyes glittering.

"I WAS EXPECTING A CLASS!" A booming bark came from behind the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom door. The Hufflepuffs all scurried through, flocking towards Moody's voice. As Emer turned to follow them, her eyes met Malfoy's for the briefest second. She continued through the door, considering.


	5. Chapter Five - The Goblet of Fire

October brought with it a buzz, as the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would soon arrive. Lessons ended early and the students were all chivvied off to their dormitories under strict instruction to change into their smartest uniform. Emer's uniform had never been considered smart – she didn't own school shoes and her trainers were scruffy, but even she looked acceptable once Hannah was through with her.

She arrived in the Entrance Hall with her robes de-creased, her tie straight and her hair, usually messy and littered with braids and beads, tied in a neat bun at the back of her head. This abnormal tidiness only worsened Emer's mood and confirmed the opinion that she alone in her house, was sane. She joined Ginny at the back of the crowd, slipping away from Susan, Leanne and Hannah at the first opportunity.

"Oh wow," Ginny said, raising an eyebrow as Emer fell into step beside her.

"Bare in mind that I know a whole year's more hexes that you do."

Ginny sniggered and together they weaved their way through the bundle of people and out into the courtyard beyond. Students had all hurried under the cover of the stone pillars, to a balconied section from which they could see out onto the grounds and the black lake. Emer clambered up onto the ledge of an ornate stone fountain and Ginny hauled herself up beside her.

Huddled close together, the students shivered while their teachers stood to attention at the fringes of the crowd. Their teeth chattered as they waited, many wishing they were inside near the fire instead of freezing in the cold night air.

"Ah," Professor Dumbledore's voice rang clear over the heads of the crowd from the very front, silencing the chatter instantly, "Unless I am very much mistaken the delegations from Beauxbatons have arrived."

"Where?" the students cried, craning their necks and elbowing their friends out of the way so they could scan the grounds with eager eyes.

"There!" Ginny cried, pointing skyward.

"What is it?"

"It's a dragon!" a first year cried wildly.

"Don't be stupid! It's a flying house!"

Soaring towards them, led by four enormous winged horses, was a carriage the size of a country hall decorated with glittering golden gilding. The students stared as the carriage performed a graceful loop around the astronomy tower, leaving a trail of silver sparks trailing behind it.

"The lake!" Lee Jordan yelled suddenly. "Look at the lake!" They turned as one in time to watch a magnificent skeletal ship break the churning surface of the black lake. It grew from the deepest depths, pumping water free from great drains along its sides. A flag depicting a ferocious looking eagle flapped in the night's wind.

"And our friends from Durmstrung!" Dumbledore exclaimed gesturing broadly towards the boat that rocked above the lake's surface. The ship didn't look particularly friendly to Emer and, she thought as the Hogwarts students all trooped back indoors, the Cinderella carriage was a little too perfect.

The foreign students shuffled into the Great Hall a little while after everybody else had settled. The Beauxbatons students joined the Ravenclaw table, donned in robes of thin blue silk and all wearing expressions of distaste as they surveyed the Hogwarts rabble. They were also all extremely good looking. Six tanned and lean boys sat straight backed between girls with long, flowing hair and petite statures. Zacharias Smith was telling anybody who would listen that they were Veela.

The Durmstrang students took refuge at the Slytherin table, and were as thickset as the Beauxbatons were slight. With short cut hair and surly expressions, the boys were broad-shouldered and the girls only slightly less so. Emer watched Draco Malfoy strike up a conversation with the burliest of them all, a sickly smile spreading over his face.

"My God!" Ernie exclaimed – he was also watching Draco and the Durmstrung boy, "that's Victor Krum!" People were standing up to catch a glimpse of him, exchanging excited conversation and a few of the girls were searching in their bags for quills. Victor Krum, Fred and George had told her, was the Bulgarian seeker who had brought about the Quidditch World Cup win for Ireland. Emer understood why Draco looked so smug.

"Friends," Dumbledore had risen, and the chatter died once more as the students turned to him, "We are brought together by an extraordinary event…"

Emer's eyes drifted towards the Gryffindor table, where Seamus was craning his neck, desperately trying to get a good look at Krum. She caught his eye and clasped her hands together, looking to the ceiling. Seamus furrowed his brow and scowled at the table.

"…the Goblet of Fire!" Dumbledore said, sweeping his arms wide and gesturing towards the end of the Great Hall. There stood a stone goblet mounted on a tall and ornate pedestal that had not been there when they had entered the hall fifteen minutes earlier. The candles lining the walls all dimmed so that the only light in the Hall flickered from the deep blue flames dancing above the goblet's mouth.

Dumbledore glided between the tables and stood beside the goblet, which was almost a head taller than him.

"Anyone wishing to submit themselves to the tournament need only write their name on a piece of parchment and throw it in the flames before this time tomorrow night. But do not act lightly, as if you are chosen there is no turning back." He looked intently around at his students, "From this moment, The Triwizard Tournament has begun!"


	6. Chapter Six - Pathetically Dim-Witted

Ripples fanned across the acid green potion fizzing in Fred's cauldron.

"And you're sure this will work?" Lee Jordan voiced suspiciously. They were sitting in the empty sixth year Gryffindor boys' dormitory. Empty because George had threatened to force-feed the other occupants a few untested products if they snitched. The cauldron was balanced precariously atop the stove burning in the centre of the room, the ingredients abandoned on one of the beds. George lay on his stomach watching Fred stir the liquid, his eyes following the movement of his brother's ladle. Lee was perched on the end of his own bed, his arms wrapped around his knees and his head cocked to one side. Emer sat on Fred's mattress, her back against one of the posts.

"Definitely." Fred answered.

"Almost entirely." George said.

"No, but we're doing it anyway." Emer rolled her eyes. Lee nodded.

"Well," Fred said, motioning for Emer to hand him one of four goblets strewn on his bed, "No time like the present." He ladled some of the potion into it before handing it back to her. "That should be two years' worth in there Paddy, at least."

She waited before drinking it, watching him spoon a much smaller amount into a goblet each for himself, Lee and George.

"Bottoms up!" The twins grinned at each other and downed their portions of the potion in one sweeping movement. Lee raised an eyebrow at Emer as she brought the goblet to her lips and drank.

It was like nothing she had ever tasted before. The potion plummeted straight to her stomach where it churned and bubbled, forcing her to double over. The others were coughing and spluttering, and they had only taken a mouthful. She, Emer, had to age by a lot more than they did and was finding it difficult to breathe. A fizzing sensation was spreading all over her body, racing up and down her limbs and making the hairs on her arms stand on end. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped and Emer was left panting, curled in a ball at the end of Fred's bed.

"Paddy?" George said warily, she raised a shaking hand and showed her middle finger, still breathing heavily.

"She's fine." George confirmed, and began ripping a piece of parchment. Emer sat up a little and watched him scribble each of their names on scraps before handing them out. Fred was considering himself in the mirror, a frown forming between his eyebrows.

"I look the same."

"You're only seven months older." Emer said bitterly, although glad that she could talk without vomiting. She hauled herself to her feet and brushed down her robes, "If anything you look uglier."

Fred rolled his eyes and turned to face her. "Oh what a charm-" He began, but then stopped, his mouth falling open in shock. He was staring at her in complete disbelief.

"What?" She said, self-consciously raising her hands to her face "What's happened?"

"It's…you're…" Fred said, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for air.

"Holy Christ, Paddy." George said, joining Fred and grinning.

"What?" Emer asked again, panicking now and very aware that the potion could have done any number of horrific things. Lee stood up and took his place beside George.

"Well," he said, raising both eyebrows, "Someone gets fit when they hit seventeen." Emr stared at him.

"Piss off what d'you…" The boys exchanged meaningful looks, then quickly busied themselves, George fumbling with his parchment, Fred packing away the ingredients and Lee Jordan searching fugitively for his wand that was sticking out his back pocket.

Emer stepped in front of the mirror and her mouth fell open.

"Shit." she said and watched as the other girl formed the same word, for that was not her. She was taller and gone was the slightly podgy stomach and cheeks. Instead she was slim, skinny almost, and her face was thinner with high cheekbones and bright amber eyes. Her hair, which had been hanging limp around her face, was longer, lighter and framed her features. She turned around and stared, stunned, at Fred who was shamelessly watching her.

"But…"

He shrugged. "Don't ask me, it's just a shame that I already declared myself too old for you."

"Holy-Jayzus-an-Mary…" Emer muttered, touching her face with her now slender fingers.

"Alright, alright." George said grumpily, "Let's get this over with before Paddy starts snogging the mirror."

There was a small crowd gathered around the Goblet of Fire as it sat on its pedestal in the Entrance Hall, students hovering to watch hopeful friends enter their names. Emer, Lee, Fred and George all bolted down the marble staircase, and as people spotted them a chorus of cheers sprung up.

"Are you seriously going to-" Ron stood between Harry and Hermione very close to the goblet, a look of awe on his face.

"Watch and learn little bro'." George said cockily and made to step forward.

"Wait!" Hermione said and he stopped, turning with an eyebrow raised. "Have you taken an aging potion?"

Fred bristled slightly, "What difference does it make if we have?"

"Well it's not going to work is it?"

"Oh yeah?"

"Why's that Granger?"

Hermione sighed and gestured to a bright pulsating line that encircled the goblet. "You see this?" she asked. "It's an age line – Dumbledore drew it himself."

"So?" Fred said, folding his arms across his chest.

"So…" Hermione cried exasperatedly, Harry and Ron had both taken a wary step back from her. "A genius like Dumbledore couldn't possibly be fooled by a dodge as pathetically dim witted as an aging potion!"

"Ah, but that's why it's so brilliant!" Fred said his face triumphant.

"Because it's so pathetically dim witted!" George finished, winking jovially at Hermione's scowl. The surrounding students all cheered again and the twins turned to bow.

"Relax Hermione," Lee said, a lazy grin spreading across his face. Hermione drew a sharp, irritated breath and gritted her teeth.

"Ready Fred?" The twins were standing right by the edge of the circle as though ready to dive from a spring board.

"Ready George."

"Together, one,"

"Two,"

"Three!" They jumped, straight over the line. The Entrance Hall erupted into cheers as their feet touched the stone on the other side. Both twins looked up and grinned broadly at one another. Lee started forward, clearly eager to join them, but then there was a great BANG and a plume of green smoke emitted from the circle, swallowing the twins whole. Both were sent flying through the air as they were spat out and landed ten feet away flat on their backs.

They pulled themselves up and sat there with a slightly dazed expression, and the crowd watched in stunned silence. Then thick white hair shot out from their chins. The hair grew and grew until within seconds both were the bearers of long silver beards and little tufty moustaches.

Everybody started to laugh and no-one more so than Fred and George themselves, who were rolling about the floor in hysterics.

"I warned you," An amused voice said from the staircase, "Not to attempt to enter the tournament if you were underage. Nevertheless," Dumbledore's eyes glittered "I would have been disappointed if you pair hadn't given it a go anyway. Off to the hospital wing I think boys." They left, flashing a grin at Emer before tumbling up the stairs and laughing manically.

"Well Em," Lee said bracingly, "I suppose we ought to get some breakfast, unless you fancy some facial hair to go with that pretty face."

"Em?" Ron said, staring at her, "Emer? But you're not…but you can't be…but…" Lee snorted; Hermione tutted and Ron went a little pink. Harry boldly started up some other conversation that Ron latched onto immediately. Emer glanced through the crowd.

Again it was only a fleeting glance, but the corner of his mouth seemed to twitch as their eyes met. She shook it off and allowed herself to be dragged by both Lee and the thronging crowd through the doors and into the Great Hall for breakfast.

Fred and George had taken the incident well, and were both laughing and beardless when Emer went to meet them outside the Hospital Wing later that day.

"Where's Lee?" Fred asked as George waved a cheerful goodbye to the matron Madam Pomfrey. They fell into step and started down the winding corridor and into the main school.

"He's with…" Emer began, but the twins shared a knowing look.

"Alicia." They chorused together in girlish voices.

Lee had announced at dinner a few nights previously that he and Gryffindor chaser Alicia Spinnet were officially a couple, again. This came as no great surprise to anyone as they had spent most of the previous year making similar make up/break up announcements that happened so frequently most people had given up trying to remember whether they were together or not. Fred and George took their friend's marital status very seriously – and took the piss out of him at every available opportunity.

The three of them ambled aimlessly along the corridors, occasionally shooting a hex at a passing Slytherin whilst chewing on some sticks of Droobles Best Blowing Gum. They were on their second loop of the third floor corridor, and deep in conversation about their failed attempt to fool the Goblet of Fire, when Fred produced a little paper bag from his robes.

Emer eyed it suspiciously.

"No." she said flatly, before he had opened his mouth.

"Come on Paddy, it's necessary research!" Fred moaned, waving the bag in front of her.

"Not if it poisons me it isn't!"

"Poison you!" George exclaimed, raising a hand to his mouth mock-offended. "We would never…" Emer snorted.

"That was one time and we fixed it! Come on Paddy…we need to check this one on girls too!"

"Charming." The bell went to signal the start of afternoon lessons. Emer looked at the twins' faces, both pulled into pleading expressions of innocence. She sighed.

"Fine." she said, and their eyes glinted mischievously, ruining their facade at once. "But you've got to pay me proper this time."

"We promise from the tops to bottoms of our hearts that we will be forever grateful-"

She turned and left, ignoring Fred's speech as he shouted it down the staircase after her.


	7. Chapter Seven - The Other Champions Draw

The Triwizard champions were announced that evening at a second specially prepared banquet in honour of the foreign arrivals. The students were crammed into the Great Hall, each of them pushing through the crowd to get a good view of the Goblet of Fire, from which the champions' names would appear.

"From Beauxbatons Academy of magic – Miss Fleur Delacour!"

Measured and brisk applause from the students in blue satin as a pretty blond girl kissed Dumbledore's hand and disappeared into a room at the back of the Great Hall.

"Aye, I won't mind watchin' her." Seamus whispered to Dean, who nodded his approval. Emer, who was sitting on a tiered bench behind them, rolled her eyes. A couple of the other Beauxbatons girls had burst into tears on account of not being chosen, and Emer didn't doubt that Seamus was considering comforting them.

"The champion from Durmstrang Institute is – Mr Victor Krum!"

Krum got a much louder applause than Fleur Delacour. Several of his fellow Durmstrang students rose to their feet as he marched, stony faced, to Dumbledore.

"No surprises there." Lee muttered, as the twins began to catcall "KRUM! KRUM! KRUM! KRUM!"

Dumbledore raised a hand for silence, and received it immediately. The Durmstrang students sat down, looking slightly dejected.

The flames licking the surface of the Goblet of Fire turned scarlet once more, and a third scrap of parchment came whizzing out – only to be caught sharply between Dumbledore's long fingers.

"And from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry-" Dumbledore's face broke into a smile as he called, "Cedric Diggory!"

There was an almighty roar that echoed around the Great Hall twice over, as every single Hufflepuff rose to their feet, stamping, clapping and screaming with delight. Cedric was hauled to his feet by a couple of sixth years and practically thrown at Dumbledore, beaming from ear to ear. A happy balloon inflated inside Emer as she cheered with the rest and watched Cedric shake Dumbledore's hand and disappear off into the chamber off the hall.

It took several minutes and an explosion of fireworks from Dumbeldore's wand to calm the Hufflepuffs down, so elated were they that finally, finally their house had something to celebrate.

When calm eventually fell, and Fred had grabbed Emer and pulled her back onto the bench, Dumbledore turned and beamed at them all.

"So that is that! The Goblet of Fire has chosen our-" He stopped. Everything stopped. Every pair of eyes in the Great Hall was staring at the Goblet.

"Harry Potter."

The Goblet had spat out a fourth piece of parchment and Dumbledore caught it.

"Harry Potter." He said it again, and the student's mutters echoed over and over again in the cavernous hall. There was a scuffle behind Emer, as Hermione and Neville pushed Harry roughly to his feet. They all watched him worm his way through the students towards Dumbledore. Harry looked even more shocked and confused than anyone else. Fred was shaking his head. Even the Slytherins seemed lost for words. The happy balloon that had risen to quickly when Cedric's name had been called deflated just as fast.

The students left in confusion, no-one dismissed them or seemed to be able to find anything of merit to say, and so they took themselves off to their dormitories. However excited chatter is infectious and soon enough the Entrance Hall was alive with anticipation and speculation.

"Ron, Ron!" Fred called, grabbing his younger brother's robes and pulling him to the side, closely followed by George, Emer and Hermione.

"How did he do it?" Fred demanded, grinning from ear to ear, "Not even we managed it!" He did not seem to notice the total lack of modesty this statement held.

"I dunno." Ron muttered, shrugging off Fed and pushing between Emer and Hermione, the latter apologising briefly before chasing after him.

"Hmm," George said, his eyes trained on Ron's retreating hunched over figure. "Well, we can dwell on that later – we've got a party to organise! You coming Paddy?"

Emer shook her head, "We've got a champion to celebrate too, so we have."

"Ahhhh Cedric…"

"Piss off."

They turned left and headed down the marble staircase towards the Hufflepuff common room, Fred and George on the pretext of visiting the kitchens for extra food. After leaving the twins, Emer slipped through the false barrel, her head bent low to avoid the stony passage ceiling. What she found when she straightened up, did not impress her.

A few students were standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, bobbing to music that wasn't playing yet, and the squashiest chairs by the fire were full of sleeping first years. Ernie was bent over a radio, poking it with his wand and muttering spells under his breath.

"This blasted thing simply will not work!" he said to Emer, glaring at the radio as if it were being deliberately unhelpful. Emer gave him a withering look and fiddled with the knob on the right hand side of the machine marked 'volume'.

"Oh," Ernie said sheepishly, "Right." Music blared out of the radio, a loud thudding tune by the Weird Sisters that the awkwardly bobbing fifth years began swaying to, looking relieved.

"We need food and drink." Emer said to Ernie, who went a little pale.

"That's all very well but where will we get it from? We can't steal…" Emer's eyebrows were raised and Ernie skulked towards the hidden passage, defeated.

However he returned barely a minute later, forcing cauldron cakes and butterbeer on anyone with a spare hand.

"Fred and George Weasley gave them to me!" He shouted excitedly above the babble, "Awfully nice chaps! Said they brought it all down from dinner especially for us!"

Emer snorted. She was prepared to bet every last scrap of money she had, which wasn't very much, that Fred and George had only given Ernie the food they couldn't manage to carry back up to Gryffindor tower.

Ten minutes later, when the 'party' was in a much more excited state, Cedric came clambering through the tunnel a broad grin spread across his face. There was a roar of applause as a pair of burly seventh years pulled him into the throng. Emer hung back and watched as Cedric was hugged and pulled about by most of her house, smiling to herself. She joined in with a half-hearted round of 'For he's a jolly good fellow', before slipping away, unnoticed, up to her dormitory.


End file.
